The reciprocity treaty, which was recently proposed between the United States and Mexico, provided that certain articles exported from the United States into Mexico should be admitted free of all import duties, whether Federal or local; but it did not prohibit, as has been generally supposed, the several Mexican States from taxing such imports, in common with other articles, when the same are found within their jurisdiction! And it is claimed that such taxes are not in the nature of import duties. But, be this as it may, the effect on the internal commerce of Mexico is substantially one and the same.
The Mexican tariff system also provides for the taxation of exports, notably on the following products: gold bullion, one fourth of one per cent; silver bullion, one half of one per cent; coined gold and silver, having already paid at the mint, exempt; orchil (a lichen from which a fine purple dye is obtained), $10 per ton;[1] wood for cabinet--
- ↑ The effect of taxation in destroying trade and commerce is strikingly illustrated by the circumstance that when Mexico imposed in 1878 an export tax of $10 per ton on orchil, the shipments of this arti-
pal custom-house officers, so as to lessen in a degree the interruptions and vexations incident to the system. But as the Federal Government and some of the States have since then authorised public improvements to an extent that the state of their finances did not justify, and have in consequence increased taxes in all possible forms through-out the republic, the prospect for the complete suppression, or even of any essential modification, of this oppressive system of taxation is not flattering.
